Inverness OAP tells of ordeal after attack woman sent to prison
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Lena Clarke spoke exclusively to the Highland News as her attacker began a three-year jail term for the horrific assault.
The 79-year-old only learned her assailant had been in court when the HN spoke to her.
When we told her 22-year-old Mollie Robinson had been jailed she said: “Oh, I didn’t know that. I hadn’t heard. I thought I would have heard about it.”
Speaking about the effects the attack had on her she said: “I’m fine. I am getting there. It is just a case of one day at a time. I have got good friends and members of the Crown church who help me.”
Asked if she was now 80, or still 79 she joked: “I’m 79 don’t make me older than I am!
“It’s stopped me going for walks, but I will get there. It will just take time. I just want to put it all behind me.
“I don’t go out alone… I have got lots of good people around me.”
Yesterday Detective Sergeant Steven MacKenzie said: “I would like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to the victim following her terrifying ordeal, and to the members of the public in their invaluable support of investigations which greatly assisted in speedily identifying the person responsible.
“I hope that this conviction and sentence will send out a clear message that Police Scotland will robustly investigate all violent crimes, helping to ensure we keep people safe and perpetrators brought to justice.”
The court in Inverness heard that Ms Clarke was walking home from a meeting of the kirk session at Crown Church when a masked attacker looking for money for drugs hit her from behind with a metal pole.
Serial offender Robinson, who is originally from Aviemore, was jailed for three years for the callous attack which happened in Telford Avenue on Burns Night.
Jailing her, Sheriff Gordon Fleetwood told Robinson, who was already on a number of bail orders, she deliberately targeted her victim to satisfy her own craving for drugs.
Robinson, of HMP Edinburgh, admitted the charge of assault and robbery on January 25.
After being taken back to the cells, in another court later in the day she was sentenced by a different sheriff to eight months on charges of assault, shoplifting and abusive behaviour. The sentences will run concurrently.
Sheriff Fleetwood heard from depute fiscal Roderick Urquhart that Ms Clarke walked home alone from Crown Church because it was a nice evening.
As she entered Telford Avenue at about 9.45pm she heard footsteps behind her.
“She then felt a sharp blow to the top of her head with a weapon,” Mr Urquhart said.
“Ms Clarke described the weapon as being a long implement, ‘like a truncheon’.”
She screamed as her handbag was torn from her grasp.
“Ms Clarke looked up and saw her attacker dressed in a dark top with the hood up and dark trousers, running away from her,” Mr Urquhart said.
The attack was seen by Megan Calder in her home opposite the scene and her partner William Porter gave chase while she called the police.
Robinson was seen heading off towards Abban Street and when she reached a block of flats in Benula Road she rifled through the handbag behind some bins.
Mr Porter caught up and challenged Robinson who left the handbag and walked away.
The fiscal said Robinson turned up at an address in Kilmuir Road at about 10pm and told the householder there she “had done something bad”. Because of the circumstances the householder told Robinson to leave.
Crime scene officers cordoned off the area around Telford Avenue and Benula Road and when Robinson returned to the area she was pointed out to police by one of the witnesses.
A metal pole was recovered from a garden in Benula Road the following day. It had been altered with tape wound around the base to form a hand grip and Robinson’s DNA was on it.
Ms Clarke went to the home of a friend who was a church minister and told her she’d been mugged.
“She (the minister) was confronted with the sight of her friend covered in blood which was running profusely down her face,” Mr Urquhart said.
“They attended A&E at Raigmore Hospital where Ms Clarke was found to have a three-centimetre laceration to her head.”
Three staples were applied to the wound and she was allowed home.
Solicitor Willie Young said Robinson had been in care since the age of eight and had struggled for many years with drugs and had a chaotic lifestyle.
At the time of the offence she had ended a significant jail sentence and was homeless.
“On this occasion she was heavily under the influence of drugs and recalls very little,” Mr Young said.
“Having been advised of the victim’s statement, she [Robinson] broke down and didn’t want to hear anything further. She has expressed remorse.”
Sheriff Fleetwood told Robinson: “You have quite deliberately targeted a 79-year-old lady making her way home to satisfy your own craving for drugs.”
